


from evening close to morning light

by mintpearlvoice



Category: Alien Series, Alien: Covenant
Genre: Drabble, F/M, POV Outsider, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 05:38:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10984488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: The best thing about a lakeside housing allotment is the lake.The most interesting thing about a lakeside housing allotment is the neighbors.





	from evening close to morning light

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Shelley.  
> "To hearts which near each other move  
> From evening close to morning light,  
> The night is good; because, my love,  
> They never say good-night."

Captain Daniels doesn't look much like what you'd expect of a captain. Pale skin, pinched-up face. She walks with a cane, or a walker, when she needs to rise from her hover chair; speaks barely above a whisper, like someone grabbed her by the throat and squeezed.  
Her husband isn't much louder. He's got this puzzled way of smiling at people, like he's not sure what you'll do next. Tattoos cover his face; plants, butterflies, birds, even a few beetles moving among the leaves.  
"What's with your face?" I asked him once.  
He regarded me for a solid few seconds before saying, "My twin brother had a grand scheme to eradicate humanity. The least I could do was eradicate his visage from my own."  
I had to laugh, of course. Like. Who uses the word visage? Even ironically.  
He laughed too, like he'd been waiting for permission, his tenor voice warm.  
I've seen him help the Captain walk, seen him repeat her words for a conversation when she's gone too quiet to hear.  
But it's summer now, our first summer on this new planet, and our houses are both by the lake. That's why I feel like I understand Daniels a little. Why she's the captain.  
Half past sunrise and I heard giggling and whispering from the house made of trees, one over from mine. I peeked out to see them both sneaking through the foliage. In only a white camisole and shorts, her pale, gangly body seemed to illuminate the morning. She moved quickly despite her heavy staff, tugging him along, laughing. He said something, bowing his head to her, and she flat-out snorted. Needed to stop and lean on the staff to catch her breath.  
Then, by the water's edge, she pulled off her clothes.  
Over the lithe softness of her belly-  
It wasn't a C-section scar. I've seen those. C-section scars imply medpods, doctors.  
This was grisly. Some sort of industrial accident shit. If I didn't know better, I would have pegged her for a Colonial Marine. Thick lines of uneven scarring zigzagged across her entire belly. Like whatever was inside her, she'd cut it out with a bottle of whiskey and the sharp end of a knife.  
No wonder the crew members treated her like a precious treasure. How could anyone have been sliced that deep and survive?  
She stumbled on a smooth rock, and her husband went to help her up. That was when she tangled her ankle around his and he went splashing into the water face-first. His tattoos wrapped around his neck and shoulders, followed the line of his body like a second spine. Plants on a trellis.  
She dove in after him, and he splashed her. Good solid wave right in the face. The captain shrieked and splashed him back. I could have heard them from all the way across the water. Laughing like kids.  
Anyone who could hate his own face so much, who could bear scars like hers, and still laugh so freely-  
I understood, then. Why the colonists on the original ship spoke so highly of her. Why they trusted her with their lives.  
Later I saw him carry her back to the little house. She leaned against him, her bare feet dangling, her head resting against his shoulder. It was the unconditional trust an exhausted child would offer a guardian.  
Or was it the trust of a Colonial Marine for a medic?  
It was like an optical illusion, the two pictures blurring the longer I looked.  
Later the music of a wooden flute would float across the water, a tune always almost-familiar, but never anything that could be named.

**Author's Note:**

> "but kayla, does this mean that david-"  
> "YUP"  
> "and that daniels had to-"  
> "YUP. and *then* walter showed up in an engineer ship."


End file.
